Raids and Graft Inquiry in Turkey Are Seen by Some as Muslim Cleric’s Plot

Baris Guler, in sunglasses, was one of the sons of cabinet ministers detained in a corruption inquiry that has highlighted tensions between followers of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Fethullah Gulen.Credit
Kursat Bayhan/Zaman Daily, via Reuters

ISTANBUL — On Tuesday came dramatic dawn raids of the offices of businessmen close to the prime minister. On Wednesday came the scintillating details in leaks to the local media: $4.5 million in cash packed in shoe boxes found in the home of the chief executive of a state-run bank; a money-counting machine and piles of bank notes discovered in the bedroom of a government minister’s son.

“Maybe he likes money, maybe he likes counting it, who knows?” said Bulent Arinc, a deputy prime minister with the governing Justice and Development Party, at an evening news conference.

More seriously, Mr. Arinc, whose party has been shaken by a widening corruption investigation, said the case amounted to a plot within the state — widely perceived to be led by followers of Fethullah Gulen, an influential Muslim cleric who lives in Pennsylvania — and suggested that the government would purge those responsible for the investigation. He denied that he was specifically referring to Gulen followers, but over the years, many are said to have taken up influential positions within the judiciary and police force. “Our opinion is that this is a planned operation, and the purpose of the investigation is to launch psychological warfare, to tarnish our government,” Mr. Arinc said.

The purge began earlier in the day, apparently. In what was widely seen as a countermove by the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, five senior police officials were removed from their jobs.

Mr. Arinc said 52 people had been detained so far for questioning as part of the corruption case, including three sons of cabinet ministers and the chief executive of Halkbank, a state-run institution that has come under scrutiny by American officials on suspicions of helping Iran evade sanctions over its nuclear program.

Speaking at a news conference in Ankara, the capital, alongside the visiting Hungarian prime minister, Mr. Erdogan called the investigation a “dirty operation” and, while not mentioning Mr. Gulen by name, called those behind the corruption case a “criminal gang.” He said, “The situation now is about these gangs showing efforts to become a state within a state.”

As the details played out on television and on the front pages of newspapers on Wednesday, many observers in Turkey and abroad suggested that the corruption allegations against those close to Mr. Erdogan — and the promise of more extraordinary charges to come — could be an even graver threat to his power than the antigovernment protests that swept the country last spring and summer.

“Gezi showed that there was a huge groundswell of opposition to Erdogan,” said Henri J. Barkey, a professor of international relations at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and an expert on Turkey, referring to Gezi Park in Istanbul, ground zero for the nationwide demonstrations. “This shows the Erdogan edifice is corrupt.”

Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Arinc linked the corruption investigation to the Gezi protests, suggesting they were part of one conspiracy against the government and the governing party. Mr. Erdogan emerged from the protests with his popularity intact among his religiously conservative base, for the most part. “This is likely to lead to divisions within his own constituency, which is a greater threat to him,” said Sinan Ulgen, a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe who runs his own economic and foreign policy think tank in Istanbul.

Photo

Fethullah GulenCredit
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

The allegations of corruption center on the construction industry and urban development projects in Istanbul, an important source of money and power for businessmen affiliated with the Justice and Development Party. They present a difficult challenge to Mr. Erdogan because fighting corruption was an important pillar of his party’s rise.

“Part of the image building of the earlier years of the party was that it would be a clean break with the corrupt Turkish politics of the past,” Mr. Ulgen said.

The tale of corruption, which has unfolded through a series of press leaks, is familiar to many Turks, with echoes of the tactics employed in recent years as top generals and military officers were sent to prison on charges of plotting coups. Those trials achieved the goal of pushing the military out of politics.

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Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist-based governing party and the followers of Mr. Gulen, a charismatic preacher who leads one of the most influential Islamic movements in the world and commands an empire of secular schools, had united to accomplish that task. But now that they are in open warfare, the stability of the governing party, which has been in power for more than a decade, is in question as a series of elections nears.

There have long been tensions between the two groups, but relations soured in recent weeks after the government tried to shut down private test preparation centers in Turkey, many of which are run by followers of Mr. Gulen and are important for the movement’s recruitment and finances. Mr. Gulen also commands networks of businessmen and media outlets in Turkey.

“Erdogan’s efforts to shut down the private schools was the last straw for Gulen and the Gulenists,” said Steven A. Cook, a Turkey expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. The question now, he said, is, “Are the Gulenists trying to take down Erdogan, or send a message of ‘Don’t mess with the family’? ”

Sebnem Arsu and Ceylan Yeginsu contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on December 19, 2013, on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: Raids and Graft Inquiry in Turkey Are Seen by Some as Muslim Cleric’s Plot. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe